Sunday PM Craft Class

"Thank you so much - you are a wonderful instructor, you should know this as many times as you've to heard it. As a very old teacher I love your touch with people." ~ Helen This page is for all the students in the PM Craft Class at The Attic. We are in the midst of taking registration and students for the April class.  If you are signed up, get a jump by checking out the current schedule and the recommended reading. 

Class Detail:  Writers will read each class - 2 pgs - these are smaller works assigned in class and refined prior to class that contain a beginning, middle, end.  You'll be critiqued on the critique you give in these smaller break out reads.  And we'll workshop - as a group - two longer submissions (schedule announced once registration complete).  You'll have your longer works workshopped by large group twice.  These are intense, fine tune, line edit style workshops from Jennifer as well. 

My goal, in this class, is to teach you all I know about crafting fine scenes via the incorporation of dialogue, sensory details, character development and forward momentum of action.  It is also my intention to give you basic information about plot, structure and character, from a readers view point, so you can better shape your ideas to read the reader. 

PM WORKSHOP DEPTH READERS: John Cooney, Megan 
 (8-10 pg. double spaced, 12 pt. font, normal 1 inch margins)  

Homework:  Read Following chapters.  Fiction: Premise from The Art of Dramatic Writing or Non-Fiction:  Simplicity from On Writing Well. 
Read 1st 25% of Financial Lives of Poets.   
2 pg. Essay:  Prompt-Heart Break (inspired by Cherish this Ecstasy)

Class 2 ~ Jan. 27: Prompt:  Heart Break (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Discuss: 1st 25% of Jess Walters The Financial Lives of the Poets. 
  Lesson:  Premise/Simplicity
  Readers: Erin, Cloie, Vicky

Class 3 ~ Feb. 10: Prompt:  Stealing  (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Model essay:  The Thief by Jess Walter
  Lesson:  Premise/Simplicity
  Readers: David, Lisa, Keri

Class 4 ~ Feb. 24: Prompt:  Birth (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Model essay:  Links by Jennifer Lauck
  Readers: Lily, Paula, Carrie

Class 5 ~ Mar. 10: Prompt:  The Perfectionist (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Model essay:  Omelas by Ursula LeGuin
  Readers:  Megan, John, Heide

Class 6 ~ Mar. 24: Prompt:  The Crush (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Model essay:  101 Ways to Cook a Hamburger by Bernard Cooper
  Readers:  Erin, Cloie, Vicky

Class 7 ~ Apr. 7: Prompt:  In the Woods (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Model essay:  The Greatest Nature Essay Ever by Brian Doyle
  Readers: David, Lisa, Keri, Sara

Class 8 ~ Apr. 21: Prompt:  Vengance (2 pg. essay/short story with beginning, middle, end)
  Model essay:  Abbey Pinola by Tom Rachman (The Perfectionists) 
  Readers: Lily, Paula, Carrie



Reference texts:
Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller (required)
Story Engineering by Larry Brooks(required)

Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker
Screenwriters Problem Solver by Syd Fields
On Writing Well by William Zinsser
The Elements of Style by Strunk/White
The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman